Tag Archives: toddler

Possibly the best toddler museum in the world

Other than our discovery of the playground at Coram’s Fields, the hands down highlight of last week’s trip to London for Arthur had to be the London Transport Museum. As a self-confessed transport geek I’ve always loved it myself – and it turns out that for a toddler it is pretty much heaven.

He’d already been overwhelmed with the excitement of being surrounded by buses and taxis and trains as we made our way around the city, and as soon as he saw the vehicles inside the museum he was off.

He was particularly drawn to this vintage car, desperate to be allowed to climb up over the luggage and sit inside.

Fortunately there was plenty else to distract him. He loved the scrolling lights inside one of the side exhibition spaces – they made him jump at first, but he was soon fascinated by the words and images all around him.

He was very taken by the miniature tube trains too – I think he spent about ten minutes pressing the buttons so he could watch them travel along their little tracks and back again, roping in any passing kids he could to join in too.

I think I was a bit more excited than him by the full size tube train simulation, but he was intrigued by the tunnel rushing by.

He found it much easier to get hands on with the driving in the All Aboard area, bouncing between the riverboat, train and bus like a pro.

Once he’d warmed up a bit he was ready to tackle his favourite ride of all: a full size London bus.

We had a fantastic afternoon, the only downside of which was that he then spent the rest of the week trying to get into the driver’s seat of the buses we travelled on. We’ll be heading back for sure next time we’re in the city, and in the meantime there is a little wooden tube train on his train tracks to remind him of his trip to London Town.

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Letting off steam in Coram’s Fields

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Arthur was a little superstar during our trip to London last week. There was lots about it that I think he enjoyed: he loved hanging out with new people in unusual places, and was totally captivated by the huge array of vehicles. But there was also lots that was rather testing for a toddler. Sitting still, mainly – on buses and tubes whilst we crossed the capital and in restaurants and cafés whilst mummy talked too much. He just wanted to explore, to run around – ‘walk and play!’ was his increasingly frustrated refrain.

And on Friday we found the perfect place for him to do just that. After a stroll around the not terribly toddler friendly British Museum and a very long wait for lunch at Strada, my friend suggested we go to Coram’s Fields. It hadn’t really been on my radar when I lived in London. I mean, I knew it was there – but you can’t even go in unless you’ve got a kid, and it really is focused towards the needs of the city’s littlest residents. And Arthur absolutely loved it.

He rode on the little spring-mounted animals first, crossing between the duck and the horsey several times. Then he saw the slide, making his way up the perfectly proportioned steps to show off the skills he’s learning in gymnastics – hanging off the bar and swinging himself onto the slide whilst I tried not to leap prematurely to his aid.

He had a go at climbing up the rope ladder too, and very nearly managed that on his own.

There were lots of little ‘baby houses’ for Arthur to explore, and he loved running between them without needing me to hold his hand every step of the way.

It was wonderful to see his increasing confidence, even if deep inside there was a pang of something else as I realised my little baby boy is growing up before my eyes.

It was definitely a much-needed pitstop – it’s always great to find new playgrounds, and this is one I’d heartily recommend if you find yourself in central London with an energetic toddler in tow!

Word of the week: London

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This week, Arthur and I have been hanging out in London. We were going to be up for the weekends anyway, with two family birthdays to celebrate, and as Leigh had a big exam this week and I had lots of friends to catch up with it made sense to stay in between. It was a little bit daunting – my parents were around last weekend, but after they headed back to Devon on Monday it was just me and the toddler. It turns out I needn’t have worried at all – we’ve had a brilliant week, and Arthur has taken everything in his stride.

We’ve traversed the city to touch base with some of my oldest and bestest friends, meeting new babies and hanging out with growing toddlers. Arthur has really impressed me by his ability to share and play nicely, and he’s enjoyed the journeys as much as anything – there have been lots of trains and tubes and buses and escalators to ride.

Possibly his favourite place has been the London Transport Museum, where he marvelled excitedly at the wide range of vehicles to admire and play with – more on that to come!

We’ve made the most of all the different cuisines available to us, managing to fit in Vietnamese, Spanish tapas, dim sum and Italian – and sushi on the South Bank before Arthur’s first cinema experience.

There’s been other culture too – architecture and street art and busking. I’ve missed the vibrancy of London, the sense that there’s going to be something new and exciting to see every time you turn the corner.

We haven’t entirely avoided the shopping, though I suspect on the whole I’ve enjoyed that more than Arthur. But he’s valiantly offered to carry my bags. And we did brave Hamleys, which wasn’t actually as bad as I feared.

Arthur hasn’t got to play outside as much as he normally would, but we did have fun embracing autumn (and trees) in Hyde park, and found a brilliant play area yesterday where he could let off some steam.

Although we’ve really enjoyed each other’s company, there’s no doubt Arthur’s missed his daddy too. He’s kept up with him through photos and hilariously surreal conversations on the iPad.

It hasn’t been quite the same though, and Arthur was very excited when he got to see him in the flesh last night. We both were.

We’ve got one more day in London, and by tomorrow I think we’ll be more than ready to head home. There’s lots to love about the buzz of the big city, but I’m very much looking forward to seeing the sea.

London leaves

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I love where I live, but as autumn encircles the UK I’ve felt a little envious of people further North. We’ve had hints of orange in our leaves, and they’re beginning to desert their branches for the ground, but all in all it’s a pretty poor show in comparison to the explosions of colour I’ve seen in photos from elsewhere.

I remember last year still being surrounded by green whilst rust coloured leaves fluttered across my Facebook feed, and we did get our turn eventually – fiery foliage hanging on long after other trees had turned to winter skeletons.

So I know that autumn will embrace Torbay eventually, but in the meantime I figured I should take advantage of our week in London to show Arthur what all the fuss is about.

It was this tree that caught my eye first, defiantly resplendent in yellow, despite being flanked in green. Arthur ran smiling across the mottled grass, picking up leaves to examine more closely along the way.

At one point he declared he wanted to climb a tree – I think he was inspired by the squirrels. I was impressed by his determination as he tried to work out how he could get purchase on the trunk, but actually in the end a hug seemed much more appropriate.

We continued on across the park, entranced by the increasingly rich pallet of colours surrounding us.

They are beautiful, those lovely London leaves. And an injection of colour was just what my autumn needed.

Things not to say to a babywearing mama

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I’ve been wearing Arthur since he was five weeks old. It was a bit of a revelation to me, and in many ways has shaped my whole approach to parenting. In the beginning the world seemed pretty supportive of my choice: there were still those who had something to say about it, but most mums I know wore their babies at least part of the time when they were tiny.

However as Arthur’s got older – and bigger – an increasing number of people have felt the need to voice their opinion on me wearing him, from well-meaning friends and family to total strangers in the street or on the bus. Most people are of course still lovely and supportive, but there are others whose comments range from the slightly irritating to the downright disturbing – and having spoken to other babywearing friends I am by no means the only one on the receiving end of them.

So here, in no particular order, is my list of things you might want to think twice about before saying to a babywearing mama.

“You’re going to spoil him, you know.”

Now I get this quite a lot. I suppose it’s my own fault really, for leaning towards the attachment parenting side of things. But as I’ve said before and I’ll doubtless say many times again I don’t believe that keeping my baby close and secure is going to spoil him. Yes, he’s very happy being worn. But does that mean I should be choosing to follow an approach that makes him less happy, just in case? I think not.

“Gosh – is that safe?” (For one friend I spoke to this question was combined with vigorous tugging on the straps of her baby carrier)

Um, yes, thank you for your concern, but this is perfectly safe. (At least it was until you started to undo the buckles!) There are of course precautions to be followed when wearing a baby, just as there are with any means of transporting a child. People have been wearing their babies for hundreds of years, and if I didn’t think it was safe then I wouldn’t be doing it.

“Oh your poor back. He must be so heavy!”

Now I feel a bit bad about including this one, because I know that most people who say it do so with my best interests at heart. But still, when you hear it several times a day it can get a bit annoying! There are of course carriers on the market (naming no names of the carrier that inexplicably seems to be the most popular despite managing to make newborns feel heavy) that are not as comfortable, for mums or babies. However having fallen in love with babywearing I’ve done my research and found one that is supportive and spreads the (quite considerable) weight of my baby evenly. There are lots to choose from, but the carrier we use now is a Toddler Connecta, designed for babies from 18 months. It’s fab, and I find it decidedly easier to wear my son than I do to carry him in my arms.

“Heh heh, I wish that was me nuzzled up in there.”

This one freaks me out a bit to be honest, and depressingly it’s the one I’ve heard most. It’s most commonly uttered by old men, and why they think they can get away with expressing to a mother walking with her child their desire to have their face in her breasts is beyond me. Seriously gross.

“Can’t he walk?”

Do mums with pushchairs get this one? I’ve been hearing it since not long after Arthur turned one, and I’m not entirely sure what the implication is. Yes, he can walk. But like most not-even-two-year-olds his little legs get quite tired when I’m rushing around trying to get things done. And if he couldn’t walk..? Well that would just be entirely inappropriate.

“You don’t want to still be doing that when he’s a teenager!”

And we’re back to that other attachment parenting chestnut. My son is one. Much like co-sleeping and breastfeeding, I very much doubt I’ll still be wearing Arthur when he’s a teenager. I might be wearing him for a while longer yet mind – I’ve been quite inspired by mamas wearing their pre-schoolers, and he still feels light as a feather when I put him on my back.

So there we have it: the things I most definitely don’t want to hear whilst I’m wearing my baby. I’d love to hear about your experiences so please share them in the comments below!

Trains, goats and autumn leaves

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This weekend, we managed to tick something else off our South Devon bucket list. We’ve been past the Rare Breeds Farm in Totnes countless times on the train to London, the vintage-style platform of the South Devon Railway looking like a gateway to another world. Having finally made it there on foot I can confirm that those first impressions really are quite accurate.

From the first steps beyond the station car park into the woodland path you feel like you’re onto something special, a sensation made even stronger once the bridge across the river comes into view.

I think Arthur could happily have stayed right there, watching the mainline trains speed past mere metres away, but little did he know the other treats in store.

To get to the farm you have to walk along the steam railway platform. Everything is beautifully maintained, and we were lucky enough to arrive just as a special service was pulling in. Arthur was captivated by the comings and goings, eagerly ‘choo choo’ing as Leigh explained the mechanics of the steam engine to him. Once again we could have ended our trip right there and they both would have been very happy.

We managed to tear ourselves away, and headed over the tracks to the little farm itself. After picking up some feed in the cafe we went through the gates – and immediately came face to face with a row of owls.

I’m not sure Arthur believed they were real at first, but then we found a very little owl called Flitwick just waiting to be stroked.

After a gentle stroke of Flitwick’s feathers we continued further on, coming across some very lively red squirrels. I’m not sure Arthur knew quite what to make of them!

And then we found the goats. I don’t think Arthur’s met goats before, and these ones were very friendly. One of my favourite moments of the afternoon was him giggling ‘Fingers! Fingers!’ as they greeted him enthusiastically through the fence. He even had a go at feeding them, and when we ventured inside was quick to make himself at home.

There were some beautiful sheep too, though Arthur was happy to let Daddy take the lead on feeding those.

After meeting all the larger animals we came across the guinea pigs, and Arthur sat himself down for a little cuddle. He thought it was a ‘baby dog’ at first, and got very confused when we said it was a sort of pig…

All in all it is a very special place, and we will most definitely be back. It’s just a shame we discovered it so late in the season! Though that did give us the excuse for a bit of frolicking in the autumn leaves – the perfect end to a perfect afternoon.

Word of the Week: Chatterbox

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Of all the things that continue to amaze me every day about my gorgeous son, his developing language skills are possibly the most exciting. This week in particular he has been chatting away to anyone who will listen – very cute, and fascinating to be getting more of an insight into what’s going on inside that head of his!

I’ve lost count of the number of words he now knows – from octopus to helicopter, from banana to hedgehog. He’s a fantastic mimic, and seems to only need to hear the name for something once before he’ll remember it for next time. What’s particularly interesting at the moment though is how he uses those words, combining them with others to express his wants and needs or explain things to us. He’ll happily engage in conversation about what he’s been up to during the day, making our family dinners when Leigh gets home after a long day’s work increasingly entertaining.

He was being particularly chatty with his London grandparents on Skype the other evening, and it’s lovely to see him beginning to want to share his experiences with them – and to be able to put them into words.

In fact the sociability of his speech is something I’ve noticed increasing day by day. For a while he’d happily chat away to me when it was just us at home during the day, but other people – especially strangers – would comment on how quiet he was. But now he’ll chat to anyone who’ll listen – the man who came to fix our oven on Monday had trouble actually settling down to work as every time my back was turned Arthur had toddled over to tell him about something else he felt he had to share.

It’s not just people Arthur’s chatting to either. I absolutely love catching him having conversations with his toys – whether it’s his dump truck or his penguins. Even better than that are the conversations he’s started enacting between them, another important step in his discovery of imaginative play.

He’s begun to really pick up the less essential nuances of conversation too, which is where things get super cute. He’ll ‘ummm’ and ‘ahhh’ as he’s trying to think of the right thing to say, has started adding on ‘see you in a bit’ to his goodbyes and is even beginning to maybe see the point of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ – though I won’t hold my breath on that one.

It is incredible to watch, but I’m under no illusion that Arthur’s special in all this. I know that what I’m witnessing is just the normal development of language that is going on as I type in homes up and down the country, throughout the world. And yet actually that is even more humbling. All these little powerhouses of potential beginning to venture out of themselves into the big wide world of verbal communication, absorbing all the words around them and digesting them and manipulating them to fit the messages they want to put across. Amazing really – I can’t wait to hear what he comes out with next!

A boy, a ball and a hula hoop

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It was the end of a long day working on the novel, and it was most definitely time to get outside. Arthur grabbed his ball, I grabbed my hula hoop, and we headed for the patch of grass which overlooks the bay. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows and bathing everything in its gentle orange light.

Arthur was off as soon as we passed the cars and I could let go of his hand. I watched him running and giggling whilst looping the hoop around my hips, breathing in the sea air and the view.

There were dogs out too for their evening stroll, some coming over to sniff around and say hello. Arthur loved that. He loved throwing his ball too, and trying his very best to catch it.

It wasn’t long before he’d commandeered the hula hoop, defying physics in his attempts to spin it round himself but ultimately content just to take it for a walk.

It was a beautiful evening, and there were moments when I caught him just sitting and looking up at the sky, marvelling at the bigness of it all.

I love those moments: so simple and yet so precious. Just me, my boy, a ball and a hula hoop. Bliss.

Home grown goodness

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For my birthday this year my parents finally helped us get our acts together and plant up our garden. As well as some gorgeous flowering plants they bought a whole host of herbs, but the thing Arthur was most excited about was the lettuce.

Salad is pretty much my favourite thing to eat during the summer, but try as I might I haven’t been able to get Arthur interested in eating leaves. That all changed once he saw me picking the lettuce from the garden – and suddenly he wanted to try too.

He’d been fascinated by the new green things we were growing long before they were ready to pick. Several times a day he’d pipe up with ‘water plants?’ – handy for me as I don’t have a very good track record with keeping them alive…

We found him his own Arthur-sized watering can and he took his new job very seriously: first following Daddy’s lead and then having a go all by himself.

It’s lovely to see him enjoying our own little patch of nature so much, but the best thing about growing salad of course is that we get to eat it. Arthur’s still not entirely sure how to go about that, but he’s certainly enthusiastic. He asks for “lettuce” or “salad” with just about every meal – and I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s loving it as much as I do!

Word of the Week: mouse

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More specifically, the Big Bad Mouse who, along with the Gruffalo himself has captured Arthur’s imagination big time this week.

He’s loved the books since he was tiny, but only in as much as he generally loves books. Then for his first birthday back in December he was given a copy of ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ on DVD. He enjoyed it, but was not all that interested in sitting still to watch anything for very long.

But now that’s all changed. I put the film on one day last week when I was trying to get things done, and he was absolutely entranced. Since then he’s asked for it every day – “big bad mouse” and “gruffalo”. Up until recently I’ve not been super keen on lots of screen time. We’ve not watched any kids TV – though Arthur does love watching music performances which we definitely haven’t discouraged. But watching him watching these stories come to life I feel like there’s a whole new world opening up to him.

His concentration is definitely getting a workout – he’ll happily sit for half an hour, fully engaged and calling out when he sees the characters he’s come to love. His vocabulary’s developing too – there are lots of things that are influencing that at the moment of course, but we were all pretty impressed when he came out with “he’s down by the lake, eating gruffalo cake”.

I’m still wary of Arthur spending too much of his day in front of the TV, but I think I may need to relax my guard a little. Filmmaking is storytelling after all, and the more I look the more I realise there are so many stories and films out there for us to explore!

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Tag Archives: toddler

Possibly the best toddler museum in the world

Letting off steam in Coram’s Fields

Word of the week: London

London leaves

Things not to say to a babywearing mama

Trains, goats and autumn leaves

Word of the Week: Chatterbox

A boy, a ball and a hula hoop

Home grown goodness

Word of the Week: mouse